NORMANDY
[Illustration: A NORMAN PEASANT]
NORMANDY
BY NICO JUNGMAN
TEXT BY G. E. MITTON
PUBLISHED BY ADAM
AND CHARLES BLACK
SOHO SQUARE · LONDON
[Illustration]
_Published_ _September 1905_
PREFACE
Pen and brush are both necessary in the attempt to give an impression
of a country; word-painting for the brain, colour for the eye. Yet
even then there must be gaps and a sad lack of completeness, which
is felt by no one more than by the coadjutors who have produced this
book. There are so many aspects under which a country may be seen.
In the case of Normandy, for instance, one man looks for magnificent
architecture alone, another for country scenes, another for peasant
life, and each and all will cavil at a book which does not cater
for their particular taste. Cavil they must; the artist and author
here have tried--knowing well how far short of the ideal they have
fallen--to show Normandy as it appeared to them, and the matter must
be coloured by their personalities. Thus they plead for leniency, on
the ground that no one person’s view can ever exactly be that which
satisfies another.
G. E. MITTON.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
IN GENERAL 1
CHAPTER II
THE NORMAN DUKES 18
CHAPTER III
THE MIGHTY WILLIAM 34
CHAPTER IV
A MEDIÆVAL CITY 56
CHAPTER V
CAEN 79
CHAPTER VI
FALAISE 93
CHAPTER VII
BAYEUX AND THE SMALLER TOWNS 112
CHAPTER VIII
THE FAMOUS TAPESTRY 129
CHAPTER IX
AN ABBEY ON A ROCK 140
CHAPTER X
THE STORMY CÔTENTIN 155
CHAPTER XI
DIEPPE AND THE COAST 163
CHAPTER XII
UP THE SEINE 182
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. A Norman Peasant _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
2. Cherry Blossom 6
3. The Harbour at Low Tide, Granville 8
4. A Festival Cap 10
5. A Seaside Resort 12
6. Grandmother 14
7. An Approach to the Abbey, Mont St Michel 22
8. Entrance to Mont St Michel 28
9. A Street, Mont St Michel 32
10. Harbour of Fécamp 36
11. A Road near Rouen 44
12. Near Pont-Audemer 46
13. Old Houses, Rouen 58
14. A Street in Rouen 62
15. The Towers of St Ouen 64
16. An Hotel Courtyard, Rouen 72
17. The Milk Carrier 84
18. A Street Vendor, Falaise 94
19. A Little Norman Girl 96
20. Rural Scene 102
21. Starting for the Washing-Shed 104
22. Lace Making 110
23. An Ancient Inn Yard 114
24. Timber-frame House, Lisieux 120
25. Valley of the Rille 122
26. St Lo 124
27. A Street in Granville 126
28. The Spinning Wheel 134
29. Mont St Michel--Sunset 142
30. La Porte du Roi 144
31. The Street, Mont St Michel 146
32. A View from the Top of Mont St Michel 148
33. A Holiday Head-dress 156
34. Cherbourg 160
35. The Gateway, Dieppe 164
36. The Quay, Dieppe 168
37. Fishermen at Fécamp 174
38. Havre 176
39. Quai Sainte Catherine, Honfleur 182
40. Caudebec-en-Caux 186
_The Illustrations in this volume have been engraved and printed at the
Menpes Press._
CHAPTER I
IN GENERAL
It is a task of extreme difficulty to set down on paper what may be
called the character of a country; it includes so much--the historical
past, the solemn and magnificent buildings, the antiquity of the towns,
the nature of the landscape, the individuality of the people; and
besides all these large and important facts, there must be more than a
reference to distinctive customs, quaint street scenes, peculiarities
in costume, manners, and style of living. Only when all these topics
have been mingled and interwoven to form a comprehensive whole, can
we feel that justice is done to a country. Yet when the scope of the
book has been thus outlined, the manner of it remains to be considered,
and on the manner depends all or nearly all the charm. It will not
answer the purpose we have in view to follow the methods of guide-book
writing; that careful pencil-drawing, where each small object receives
the same detailed recognition in accordance with its size as does each
large fact, is not for us; for it is essential that the whole must
consist of wide areas of light and shade, to make definite impressions.
Many people have passed through the country, guide-book in hand, have
studied the style of every cathedral, have seen the spot where Joan of
Arc was murdered, and where William the Conqueror was born, but have
come back again without having once felt that shadowy and intangible
thing, the character of Normandy, wherein lies its fascination.
It seems, then, that the only possible way to aim at this high ideal
will be to exercise the principle of selection; to choose those things
which are typical and representative, whether of a particular town
or the whole country, to describe in detail some points which may be
found in many places, and to leave the rest. A town-to-town tour, with
everything minute, accurate, at the same level, would be wearisome and
unimpressive, however useful as a guide-book. Here we shall wander and
ramble, selecting one or two objects for special attention, perhaps by
reason of their singularity, perhaps for the opposite reason, because
they are typical of many of their kind, and by this method we shall
gain some general idea of the country, without becoming tedious by
reason of too much detail, or vague for lack of it.
It has often been said that Normandy is a beautiful country, or as it
is less happily expressed, “So pretty,” and this is not altogether
true; no doubt there are parts of Normandy which are beautiful, such
as the banks of the Seine, and the country about Mortain and Domfront,
but there are also parts as dully monotonous as the worst of Holland
or Picardy. To know the country, one must see all kinds, and perhaps
with knowledge we shall get to feel even for the plainer parts that
affection which comes with knowledge of a dear but plain face.
The present chapter, however, is merely preliminary and discursive,
with the object of giving some general idea of the country as a
background before filling in the groups destined for the foreground.
The place where the majority of English people first strike Normandy
is Dieppe. The coast-line running north and south of Dieppe is famous
for its bathing-places and pleasure resorts, and it will be dealt with
later on.
The district lying between Dieppe and the Seine is known as Caux. The
route from Dieppe to Paris is well known to many a traveller, and
the feeling of anyone who sees it for the first time will probably
be surprise at its likeness to England. If the journey be in the
spring-time, he will see cowslips and cuckoo flowers in the lush green
grass, amid which stand cows of English breed. The woods will be
spangled with starry-eyed primrose and anemones, while long bramble
creepers trail over the sprouting hedges. Even the cottages, red-tiled
or thatched, are quite familiar specimens; and it is only when some
rigid chateau, in the hideous style most affected by modern France,
built of glaring brick, and with an utter absence of all attempt at
architectural grace, is seen up a vista of formal trees, that he will
realise he is not in the Midlands.
Then we come to the banks of the Seine. Perhaps if one had to choose
out of all Normandy, one would select the country lying within and
around those great horseshoe loops of the river as admittedly the most
beautiful part. So full of interest and variety is the course of the
Seine, that we have reserved a special chapter for an account of it
between Havre and Vernon. However, beautiful as it is, this part is not
quite so characteristically Norman as some other districts. The Seine
itself, though it flows for so long through Normandy, does not belong
to it, but to France; the people who live on its banks are more French
than Norman, and we have to go farther westward to find more typical
scenery. The country lying about Gisors, and between that town and the
Seine, was called the Vexin, and formed a debatable ground on which
many a contest was fought, and which was held by France and Normandy in
turn.
To the west of the Seine the country varies. Some towns, like Lisieux,
lie surrounded by broken ground well clothed by trees, while much of
the district, notably that south of Evreux, is monotonous and almost
devoid of hills at all.
We find here some instances of those long, straight roads which it
seems to be the highest ideal of the Vicinal Committee to make. We
shall meet them again in plenty elsewhere, but may as well describe
them here. Take for instance that road running between Evreux and
Lisieux; it undulates slightly, and at each little crest the white
ribbon can be seen rising and falling, and growing at last so small in
the endless perspective, that it almost vanishes from sight. Six miles
from any town a man is found carefully brushing the dust from this
road, though what good he can possibly do by the clouds he raises with
his long, pliant sweep is a mystery. On each side of the road there is
a broad ribbon of green, and in this case it is overhung by a double
row of trees that really do give some shade. The peasants walk in this
green aisle, but even with the grass underfoot the patience needed to
traverse perpetually such monotonous roads must be great; it is the
quality often found in those whose lives know little variety. Sometimes
these high roads are planted with poplars, which mock the wayfarer, for
like so many other trees in France, these poplars are stripped of all
their boughs almost to the top, and the little tuft of light leaves
remaining gives no relief to sight or sense on a glaring road under
a summer sun; oaks, horse-chestnuts, beeches--almost any other tree,
and all seem to grow well--would have been far better for shade and
comfort; yet for one road planted with these umbrageous trees a dozen
are lined by the scanty and disappointing poplar. Along them pass the
market carts with hoods like those of a victoria; and even the drivers
of slow travelling carts supply themselves with miniature hoods,
exactly like those of perambulators, to cover their seats, for no one
could endure the hours passed in the sun without some protection.
A great deal of Normandy is flat and bare; the flint and trefoil style
is common. Wide fields of mustard of a crude raw yellow, not golden
like the Pomeranian lupin fields, are often to be seen. The flat
landscapes are broken by a few stiff or scraggy trees, tethered cows,
or cottages of lathe and clay; yet, we hear the song of the lark and
scent the breath of roses, and in the spring and early summer orchards
of cherry blossom make gleaming sheets of white on many a roadside.
The valley of the River Rille, up which Pont Audemer lies, is of a
different style altogether, still it has characteristics in common
with other districts. The valley is flat, and from it on each side so
steeply rise the fir-crowned hills that in describing them one could
almost use the word rectangular. Though the trees are fairly thick
there is a ragged, unfinished, rather scrubby look, very often seen in
Normandy.
[Illustration: CHERRY BLOSSOM]
If we spring westward now to Caen, we find the flat and bald landscape
everywhere. The country is almost incredibly dull, and this is the
reason why Caen, such an interesting town in itself, makes so small an
appeal as headquarters. The long, straight roads radiate from it in
all directions. Here and there there is a lining of trees, but
generally only a green ditch, waterless, and a line of cornfield,
blue-green or yellow as the season may be, with perhaps a ragged fringe
of gnarled apple-trees standing ankle-deep in the corn, and the wide
sky, like a great inverted bowl of clear blue, fitting every way to
the horizon. There may be fields of deep crimson trefoil to vary the
colouring, or there may be fields yet unplanted in which the bare brown
earth seems to stretch to eternity, and far away in the midst are the
stooping figures of two or three men and women busily working with
bent backs on a shadeless plain. Yet in this wide flat country there
is a freshness and an openness that one might imagine could permeate
the blood, so that the peasants who were born and reared here might
suffocate and die in a mountainous country, as the mountaineers are
said to pine and die in a plain. This flat plain to the westward of
Caen, and surrounding Bayeux in the district of the Bessin, has been,
so long as history has any record, a prime agricultural country with
magnificent pasturage. The most notable points in the little villages
which stud it are the wonderful churches, out of all proportion to the
size of the hamlets they represent. Of course this feature is found all
over the country, and in almost every small town there is a cathedral,
so that one cannot but wonder where the money came from which built
such glorious monuments to piety. The line going to Bayeux runs at
about seven or eight miles from Caen, between two little villages,
Bretteville and Norrey, which share a station between them. The church
at Norrey, built in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, is a very
model of architectural perfection and simplicity, the tall spire is
something in the style of the marvellous St Pierre in Caen itself.
Bretteville falls not far short of it, though the tower is after a
different pattern. A very few miles on, at Andrieu, is a church with a
splendid tower of the same date as Norrey, and about two miles south,
at Tilly aux Seulles, a church of which the nave is eleventh century,
the choir twelfth, the tower fourteenth, and the portal fifteenth, all
in the artistic and finished style we associate with that period when
there seems to have been nothing but good work. This group of churches
is worth mentioning as striking, even in the profusion to be found in
Normandy. Leaving Caen and going southward, we plunge before very long
into the hilly country from which the Orne rises. This is known as the
Bocage, a name which suggests rich foliage. The part of the country in
which Mortain and Domfront lie has been called the Alps of Normandy,
and certainly it can hold its own for picturesqueness. It is, however,
comparatively little known; the line of the quick-trip-man may touch
Falaise, but it goes no further south. Yet even at Falaise one can see
part of a ridge extending for many kilometres, a ridge which has been
so magnificently utilised as the site of the castle where William was
born. The hills through Mortain and Domfront run parallel with
this ridge, and are of the same description. Indeed the positions of
the castles at Domfront and Falaise are very similar.
[Illustration: THE HARBOUR AT LOW TIDE, GRANVILLE]
Turning now to a new district westward, we find a rugged granite coast,
chiefly notable for the splendid views it affords of the bay of Mont
St Michel and its famous rock, and on a wider scale of the Channel,
where lie the Iles Causey and Iles Normandes (Channel Isles). There
are here a group of fine towns, Avranches, Granville, Coutances, and
St Lo. The first named is the capital of the Avranchin district, which
stretches up to the little stream Couesnon, separating Normandy and
Brittany. Thus we are almost at the end of a general topographical
survey; there remains only that peninsula of the Côtentin, very little
visited, and entirely off the tourist track, yet in itself delightful.
The hills rise and fall, and are well covered with trees, which, though
not of a great height, grow warmly and bushily. The roads are good, and
the country is studded with ancient chateaux, now for the most part
farmhouses, which shall have, as they deserve, a chapter to themselves.
We have thus run very quickly over Normandy in a general survey,
gaining some idea of the characteristics of the districts, and calling
them by the ancient names they bore in the days of the Norman dukes.
In regard to the people, what there is to say has been said in the
various local chapters. The quaint costumes, which are familiar to us
from many a picture, are fast dying out; in Normandy one sees less
of them than in Brittany; here and there, it is true, we find a local
fashion in caps, as at Valognes; and still on feast-days and fair-days
some damsel appears in the wonderful erection of stiffening and
beautiful hand-made lace which her grandmother wore, to be the envy of
her neighbours; but in an ordinary way these things are not seen. “On
y cherchent vainement ces riches fermiéres de la plaine et du Bessin,
dont les hautes coiffes garnies de dentelles et les bijoux Normandes
attiraient tous les regards.”
[Illustration: A FESTIVAL CAP]
And what is said of costumes may be said also of customs. Le Hericher,
who has made a study of racial characteristics, says that the Normans
are not a people of imagination and idealism like the Celtic races.
“Il y a en Normandie deux localités où on remarque une population
exotique, exotique de costume, exotique de langue; c’est Granville à
quatre lieues de Cancale, son berceau, son point de départ; Cancalaises
et Granvillaises sont des sœurs séparées par un bras de mer. L’autre
c’est le faubourg de Dieppe, celui des pêcheuses, le Pollet. Ces deux
localités où la race est Celtique, se distinguent par un esprit pieux
qui, comme cela se fait chez les Bretons, mêle la religion aux actes de
la vie civile et de l’existence maritime.” He adds, “Le Normand chante
peu et ne danse pas du tout. Son voisin le Breton chante beaucoup,
danse un peu.”
Nevertheless a dancing-match may still be found in some obscure corners
of Normandy.
The Norman has the love of country strongly developed and though
settlers have gone forth to other lands, especially to Canada, the
mother-country retains their hearts in a peculiar way. One of the most
popular of the national songs carried overseas runs:--
“À la Claire fontaine,
Les mains me mis lavé.
Sur la plus haute branche
La rossignol chantait,
Chante, rossignol chante
Puisque t’as le cœur gai,
Le mien n’est pas de même
Il est bien affligé.”
Longfellow’s _Evangeline_ is full of the spirit of the exile and his
picture of the girl herself:--
“Wearing her Norman cap, and her kirtle of blue, and the earrings,
Brought in the olden time from France, and since as an heirloom
Handed down from mother to child through long generations,”
gives us a clear-cut vision of a type of Norman girl now growing every
day more rare.
A great many people who could visit Normandy as easily as one of our
own coast towns are deterred by the difficulty of knowing where to
begin, and what route to take. Normandy is the easiest of all countries
to visit. One may begin anywhere with the certainty of finding interest
and enjoyment, especially those who are cyclists, for the roads are
as a rule excellent, much better than those in Brittany, and one may
stay for a longer or shorter time with equal pleasure, for the country
furnishes material for many a month, and yet much can be seen in ten
days or a fortnight.
The best known starting-place, as we have said, is Dieppe, and of the
hundreds who enter Normandy yearly, at least eighty per cent. come in
by this gate. A very usual route for a first trip is by Rouen, Evreux,
Lisieux, Caen, Bayeux, St Lo, Coutances, Avranches, and St Mont Michel,
returning from St Malo. This for a preliminary survey is good, and
having once been in the country it is almost certain that the traveller
will go again, given the opportunity.
[Illustration: A SEASIDE RESORT]
There are of course many people who are content with the sea-coast,
and wish to penetrate no further than Dieppe or Trouville, to mention
the two largest of the coast resorts. There is much to be said for
these places. There is a brilliance in the sunny air, a gaiety in the
mingling crowds, a completeness in the round of amusements, and the
opportunities for observing one’s fellow-creatures, that are grand
elements in the tonic of change. The bathing, the bands, the casinos,
the toilets, are all excellent of their kind, and many a tired worker
goes back to that office in the city, where his view is limited by his
neighbour’s window-reflectors, a new man for the busy idleness of a
fortnight at one of these holiday resorts. Unfortunately for those who
have not much to spend, the prices at the best hotels at these
places in the season are almost prohibitive. However, the season is
late, not beginning until July, and there are sunny months before that.
There are also countless places along the coast less known, and having
the primary advantages of the others; where the sands are just as
stoneless and shadeless, and where the sea-air is as fresh and the sky
as blue, but where the hotels are not so exorbitant, and the villas and
pensions are innumerable also. Such, to take only one example, are the
places that line the coast near Caen.
But this is the merest fringe of the subject. One who has sampled the
coast towns, and rushed over the main route above described, has hardly
begun to know Normandy. He has endless choice left for future holidays.
He may make his headquarters at Valognes to explore the Côtentin;
he may settle down at Domfront, and wander throughout that lovely
district; or he may devote himself to the country around Les Andelys
and Gisors; and everywhere he will find opportunity for enjoyment.
The difficulty in passing quickly through Normandy on a cycling or
pedestrian tour is to get food when and where you want it. To make any
progress at all in summer, it is necessary to start in good time after
a substantial meal, then to take a very light luncheon, perhaps carried
with one, and to arrive in time for a good dinner at the day’s end.
This is very difficult of accomplishment. Such a thing as that which an
Englishman calls a good breakfast is almost out of the question, and
the probability is that the cyclist riding off the beaten tracks cannot
get anything at all for the rest of the day; for of all hopeless places
for eatable food, the small villages in Normandy are the worst. Drink
of some kind, vermouth, and the sweet syrupy grenadine, can be had at
every little shanty, marked “Debit du Boisson,” but there is nothing to
eat.
[Illustration: GRANDMOTHER]
I can recall one scene which could never have taken place anywhere save
in Normandy. An old farmhouse with half-door, which, being opened,
admitted one to an old room toned in browns of all shades, heavy beams,
walls, and floor alike. A few boughs, green-encrusted, and sending
up a thick smoke, lie on the open hearth. A little old dame, of any
age one likes to guess, with wizened nut-brown face encircled by a
spotless close-fitting coif, is the lady of the house. Her face is one
to which Rembrandt alone could have done justice, with an expression
at once kindly, dignified, and shrewd. On the rough table, hacked and
hewed by many a knife, are set bowls of milk strongly tasting of wood
smoke. Sour cream is spread like jam on slices roughly carved from a
loaf the size of a bicycle wheel, and about as hard as deal wood. The
cream is very sour, and a few lumps of sugar are served out with it to
be grated over it. The old dame sits by with folded hands while the
party laugh over their strange meal, but as the laughter continues she
grows slightly anxious, and asks to be assured that she is not the
object of it; a royal compliment in the best French at the command of
the best linguist of the party chases away anxiety, and also for the
moment dignity and shrewdness, leaving nothing but delight pure and
simple on that dear old work-worn face.
It is the fashion to praise French cooking, but to an Englishman who
has passed the day bicycling with nothing but a couple of soft-boiled
eggs and some sour cream, there is something unsatisfying about the
ordinary dinner menu at a French hotel. The monotonous soup, always
_maigre_; the dull variety of nameless white fish, which seems to be
kept in stock as a staple; the little tasteless pieces of veal, all the
same size and shape cut on a dish; the leathery and half-raw mutton,
also cut in the same way; the very small variety of vegetables, and
utter absence of attempt at sweets--is not an appetising menu. The
French are apparently very conservative in their food. A traveller
of eighty years ago tells us: “The breakfast at the table d’hôte at
Argentan, as at every other place where I stopped, was of exactly the
same nature as their dinners. That is, soup, fish, meat of different
kinds, eggs, salad, and a dessert with cider; no potatoes or any
other vegetable but asparagus at any meal,” and this would be a very
fair account of an hotel menu nowadays. The worst fault seems to be
monotony, always chicken, gigot, or veal. Of course, at the very
first-class hotels, at places such as Dieppe, where English influence
has penetrated, things are certainly better, but in the ordinary best
hotel in a second-class town, the food is very unsatisfactory, and the
meat always tough and bad, in spite of the splendid pasture lands and
the fine fat beasts one sees grazing; good beef is very rare, and good
mutton unknown. In this respect Normandy seems to have been unvaryingly
the same, for the traveller above quoted writes also: “With occasional
exceptions, the meat in this part of Normandy (Caen) is of inferior
quality, more particularly the mutton, which is generally as lean and
tough as an old shoe.” So often has the praise of French vegetables
been repeated, that one has learned to take it as an axiom, until
one goes and finds out for oneself. The truth is there is less, not
more variety, than with us; such a thing as a good spring cabbage is
unknown, and cauliflower is served only _au gratin_. Yet the hotels
have improved enormously in many points in the last seven or eight
years. They have their advantages, and in some ways every French hotel,
even the poorest, can beat its English compeers. The great advantage of
cheap wine is felt at every hotel in Normandy; the question of what to
drink at dinner, usually such a difficult one, is solved for you. On
the table, almost everywhere, are red and white wine and seltzer water
“compris”; and at every hotel, without exception, cider, varying it is
true greatly as to quality, can be had for the asking.
The hotels are also cheap. At those of the first class, 1 franc is the
average charge for the petit déjeuner meal; the déjeuner is generally
3; and the dinner 3.50; while the room may be taken at an average price
of 3 francs. Therefore a full day at an hotel usually costs 10.50
francs, or _en pension_ 10 francs, equalling between 8 and 9 shillings;
but at fashionable coast resorts in the season 15 francs per day is the
lowest rate, and in the out-of-the-way districts, and off the beaten
tracks, 7 and 8 francs a day are the usual charges. At any rate, in
Normandy one is free from the ridiculous impost called “attendance,”
which entails an additional 1s. 6d. a day in many English and Scotch
hotels, while tipping is expected just the same.
Many of the hotels have a forbidding aspect outside; until one is used
to it, it is a little damping to enter under a low archway leading to a
stableyard, but the entry is often the worst part of it. An Englishman
touring through the country will find as a rule he is able to find
without difficulty quarters which possess all requisites though not
luxuries.